Estimating the Velocity and Direction of Moving Targets using a Single Optical VHR Satellite Image

The present contribution demonstrates the feasibility and explores the limits of a new method for estimating the velocity and direction of moving targets using a single, optical, very high resolution (VHR) satellite sensor dataset. The method is based on the fact that there is a time lag between the data collection of the panchromatic (PAN) and multi-spectral (MS) sensors in the same VHR platform. Consequently, it is developed around three main steps: i) accurate image-to-image registration between MS and PAN images with a sub-pixel displacement error, ii) precise location of barycentre of targets by mathematical morphology-based image transforms, and iii) estimation of the ground velocity and direction of the target using the MS-PAN spatial displacement, the known time lag, and an image-to-ground transformation taking into account the interior and exterior orientation of the sensors and a terrain height reference. An evaluation of the reliability and limits of the proposed method based on the observation of the results regarding manually-selected moving and non-moving targets is included.

PESARESI Martino;  K.H. Gutjahr;  PAGOT Elodie; 

2008-05-15

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

JRC37842

0143-1161,   

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a788789999?words=pesaresi*,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC37842,   

10.1080/01431160701767419,